"Who's been telling you tales about me?"

"A little bird. So you see, Gregory, I'm more in want of a thousand pounds, because you can't carry on a house like this for long on fifty pounds, even if I have so much at the bank, which, as I say, I doubt."

"Fifty pounds! You're playing the fool with me--it's a favourite game of yours. What's become of the quarter of a million you told me that man Grahame had left you?"

"That's what I should like to know."

"You don't mean you've spent it? You can't have done--not in the time."

"I've never had it to spend."

"What rot are you talking? What game are you playing? Have you all along been telling me nothing but lies?"

"Cuthbert Grahame told me himself that he was worth more than a quarter of a million; soon after he died I told you that only a small portion of the money could be found."

"You told me nothing of the kind--you've never told me anything.

Whenever I asked you a question you've always shut me up. You've kept me all along in the dark."

"Then I tell you now. Only a small sum was ever found, and that's been spent--and more than spent."

"Then am I to understand that he was fooling you when he talked about his quarter of a million?"

"I don't believe that he was. I believe he was telling the truth; that he was worth what he said; only it's never been found, and no one seems to know where it is." She held out her clenched fists in front of her, shaking them, as if she were endeavouring, by the exercise of sheer physical force, to a.s.sist her mental process. "Sometimes I feel that I know--that I am very near to knowing--that if I could do something I should know quite. It's as if I'd been told something in a dream, and, on waking, had forgotten what it was. I don't like to think of the time he died--I can't." She looked about her, as if unconscious of his presence, with something on her face, in her eyes, which startled him. "Yet if I could--if I could! I believe it would all come back to me what I have forgotten, and I should know where the money is. But I can't! I can't! Since--since the pillow slipped from under him, I--I've never been the same."

She dropped into a chair, looking straight in front of her, with her hands dangling at her sides, as if she saw--she alone knew what. This was such a new mood for her that its very novelty scared Mr. Lamb.

"Don't look like that, Belle! What are you looking at?"

"G.o.d knows! G.o.d knows!"

Mr. Lamb squirmed.

"Don't! I say, drop it! You're a cheerful sort of person, upon my word! I come here to get a pound or two, and you go on like this! Do you mean to tell me straight that we're hard up?"

"There are three things that can save us, and three things only.

If I could think I might find the money."

"Then, for the Lord's sake, think! Only don't think like that; it gives me the creeps to hear you."

"I can't think, anyhow, about that; I've tried, and I can't. If I could get the money out of McTavish & Brown, that would be something."

"Get it out of any one, but please remember that sharp's the word."

"Then there's the play--Harry Talfourd's play--I believe there's fame and fortune in that--and safety. Do you know what that means--safety?"

"Gracious, Isabel! don't shout at me like that! My nerves were all mops and brooms when I came; you've made them ever so much worse. I'm all of a twitter. I'll talk to you when you're in a more reasonable mood; you'll upset me altogether if I stay much longer." Mr. Lamb withdrew, to return immediately, at least so far as his head and shoulders were concerned, the rest of his body he kept on the other side of the door. "Deal fairly with a chap--do! I must have cash from somewhere, or I shall be in a deuce of a hole. Can you let me have fifty?"

"I can't."

"Can you make it twenty-five?"

"I can't. I can't let you have anything. Do you want me to yell at you? I--can't--let--you--have--anything! Do you hear that?"

"All right! don't shout at a man like that! I should think you must be going off your head. I never saw you in such a cranky mood before."

Mr. Lamb beat a precipitate retreat, this time finally. His wife, left alone, remained seated on her chair in that very curious att.i.tude, with that very curious look upon her face.

"It must be imagination--what they call an optical delusion.

Perhaps, as he says, I'm going off my head. One thing's certain, it can't be real. This is not his room; that's not his bed; that's not----" She veiled her eyes with the palms of her hands.

"No! no!--I'm too much alone. I shall go mad if I'm so much alone--mad!"

She sat silent for some moments, with her features all contorted, as if she were wrestling with actual physical pain.

Then, rising, she took out of a small cupboard in an ormolu cabinet a decanter containing some colourless liquid. Pouring some of it into a winegla.s.s she swallowed it at a draught.

It was pure ether. She resorted to it to minister to a mind diseased.

When, later, she descended to the apartment which was called, as it almost seemed ironically, Mr. Talfourd's workroom, that gentleman rose to greet her with a smile. She also smiled. To all outward seeming she was herself again--self-possessed, satisfied with herself and with the world, at peace with every one. They exchanged a few ba.n.a.l sentences, both remaining on their feet, she looking at him with eyes which, to phrase it diplomatically, flattered, he meeting her glance with an appearance of serene unconsciousness that there was anything in it which was singular. Presently she touched on the topic which was to the front in both their minds.

"About the play--have you thought it over? Am I to play Lady Glover?"

He still was diplomatic.

"You will understand that I, being a conceited and self-centred author, the matter of my play bulges out until it a.s.sumes for me what you will probably, and correctly, consider exaggerated proportions. Will you let me think it over a little longer? In the first place, I have settled nothing with Mr. Winton, and, in the second, I want to ask you to do me a favour."

"You are aware that between you and me for you it is but to ask and to have--anything, everything, I have to give."

If her words were significant, the manner in which they were spoken underlined them. Neither the manner nor the matter of his reply could be termed sympathetic.

"I don't know if you are aware that I am engaged to be married."

If something flickered across her face which was not there a moment before, it went as quickly as it came.

"No, I wasn't. Are you?"

"I, of course, don't expect you to be interested in the trivialities of my life, and I only mention it as a mere detail, but--the lady would very much like to know you. May she?"

"My dear Mr. Talfourd! hadn't you better put it the other way?

May I know her? and when? May I call on her? or will she pay me the great compliment of coming to see me?"

"You're very kind. With your permission she will come and see you to-night."

"To-night? I'm at home--of course! Do you know I'd almost forgotten it. Bring her by all means. Tell her she's to come early, before the people, and that she's to stop late, after the crowd has gone."

Of such clay are we const.i.tuted. She had not the dimmest notion that in giving that very warm invitation she was hanging up over her own head a sword of Damocles, which, in this case, was suspended by something which was almost less than a single hair.